Forgotten
by Sanded Silk
Summary: While on a mission to extract information, Eames encounters a girl in the mind of the target whose story and situation compel him to help her out. Literally. Eames/OC. Discontinued. (See "Meshwork Fragile")
1. Chapter 1

This story is centered on my original character, but heavily involves Eames, because we all love Eames. Some of the other original characters may show up, but that will only be when necessary (when I feel like it).

**Disclaimer**: I don't own anythinggg D:

-Sanded Silk-

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><p>The first—first vision?—came on like a pail of ice water to the face. I hadn't been aware that I was wallowing in some kind of oblivion until the vision came on, and then I wished I was back in oblivion, because the vision was the scariest thing I'd ever experienced in my life. Not that I'm sure I was in oblivion before this vision started. And not that I remember anything else in my life. Not that I'm sure I even have—had—a life.<p>

A sprawling farmland, with squat houses parked every quarter mile or so. Besides these houses, and the occasional tractor grumbling through fields under the red-hot sun, I am alone.

Straying off the poorly beaten road, I bob to the nearest tractor like a lost baby calf.

"E-Excuse me?" I call to the gangly man driving the tractor. My voice sounds pitifully timid and otherwise normal—painfully normal. He doesn't seem to hear me.

"Excuse me?" I try again. He looks at me, and his face turns from tired to astonished.

Confused, but desperate, I press on. "Sir, do you know where I am?"

He stares at me a little longer, not seeming to know how to respond. In the end, he chooses to ignore me, and drives on in his battered old tractor, looking deeply confused.

"Wait! Why won't you…answer me?" Though my words are demanding, my voice falls with every word. It's clear he doesn't want anything to do with me, for whatever reason. I watch his tractor as it rumbles on, getting further and further away from me. When I can no longer hear the engine complaining, I return to the main road, pick a direction, and walk.

Along the way, I stop several other people, including a woman leading a horse and a child with his dog. Both look at me with intense astonishment, and both hurry away from me as if I'm manifesting the symptoms of some alien disease.

When I am sitting down and resting my aching feet, the ground begins to shake. A moment after the shaking starts, the earth begins to _tilt_.

The tilting isn't so bad at first; I cling to the rock I'm sitting on, and manage to not topple over. But suddenly the earth gives a violent, head-spinning heave, and tips forward, sending me tumbling. The tractors disappear, the lights in the houses go out, the trees remain elegantly perpendicular to the ground. I claw for branches, for trunks, for the ground itself. No one hears my screams.

There is a flash of white, and then nothingness.

-o-o-

In the nothingness—oblivion, it must be—panic rises in my throat. I can't feel my limbs, I can't see a thing.

When nothing else happens, the panic dies down. And I am left with a lingering, gnawing confusion.

Where am I?

More importantly, _who am I_?

I reach deep into my mind, as deep as I can go, to see if a memory—if anything—will surface. Though I feel as if something is floating there, something is hovering in the depths of my mind, I can't touch it, can't grasp it. The nothingness does not respond, only carries me further into its depths.

-o-o-

I am suddenly aware of something on my nose.

Confused, I lift my hand to bat at my nose, and feel the woolen scratchiness of a mitten. When I pull my hand away, I find myself in a snow-barraged city.

I feel relief at being out of the nothingness. I feel confusion at the sudden change in surrounding, in existence. I feel—

A gunshot rings out from around the building I am crouched against. I didn't notice before, but suddenly I realize—with a jolt of panic—that the street, despite its abundance of buildings and shops and cramped apartments, is completely empty of people.

Another gunshot, and the jolting sound of a door slamming. I listen a little closer, and hear—

A man, huge and tall and _huge_, barrels around the corner. His face is covered abundantly by a ski mask, and grasped in his hands is a gun. He doesn't seem to realize I am here, stepping around me and barreling on.

Another man appears around the corner, close on the first man's heels. This man's face is uncovered, and he stops at the side of the building and shoots at the man—right over my head.

"Um…E-Excuse me?"

He finally sees me. His eyes go wide.

"No—wait—" Despite my attempts to make him stop, he runs—more from me than after the other man. And I'm left standing there, alone. Without really thinking, I trip after them.

Following the sounds of their gunshots and cries, I run around buildings, between buildings, up and down stairs. The sounds lead me to the rooftop of a rickety apartment building, where I run head-on into a masked man. While I am reeling back, a gunshot sounds, and I am in oblivion all over again.

Was I shot? Killed? If so, why did I survive? _Did_ I survive? Was I in some kind of afterlife? If so, how did I get out of this "afterlife" before? Was this an afterlife at all?

Quelling these infuriatingly-unanswerable questions, I reach out, even though I know that there is nothing to touch.

-o-o-

The time between the second vision and the third seems to be much, much longer. When the third vision swoops upon me, I am very relieved, and a little apprehensive. I was shot last time, after all.

The third vision is set in a building. At first, it seems to be some kind of restaurant. But when I leave through one of its numerous open doors, I find myself in some kind of lobby, with several elevators running along a sprawling wall. People in formal dress walk about the lobby, carrying briefcases and purses. Though there is a murmur of voices hovering in the air, no one seems to be actually talking to each other.

I spend a long time sitting in a single seat armchair in the lobby, examining the building—a high-tech, sterile mass of glass and metal and marble in shades of beige and silver and black—and the people in the building. The uniformity in dress style and in behavior doesn't bore me for a moment. In fact, it terrifies me, and it keeps me sitting ramrod-straight and staring for a long, long time.

A person—a man—emerges at the mouth of an elevator, and cuts through the lobby. He is dressed like every other man; his brown hair is smoothed back; he looks normal. But the way he cranes his neck about, as though looking for someone, and the way he tries to hide his hurry, catches my attention. I rise automatically to follow him.

He seems to know that he is being followed by the time we make it to a hallway, because he turns his head slightly over his shoulder before he begins to run.

Determined not to let this man go, I speed up as well. At a turn in the hall, he ducks out of sight. I veer as well, but find myself staring down an empty hallway.

When I am about to turn around, dejected, a hand bursts out of the shadows and grabs my arm. The other hand clamps down hard over my mouth.

"Now, I'm personally not all that comfortable killing a little lady like you," a heavily-accented voice rumbles in my ear, "but know that I will kill you if you try anything funny."

I try to nod.

"Now, then. Stupid of Jencks' subconscious, wouldn't you say? Sending a defenseless little lady after a big guy with a gun. Where're your buddies? You're leading someone to me, aren't you?"

I shake my head no.

"Don't lie to me. I know you're not armed, but you don't have to be armed to be dangerous."

There is a long pause.

"Where are your friends? Bit late in the attacking, wouldn't you say?"

I claw at the hand he has over my mouth. To my surprise, he lets up enough for me to talk. I gasp for air before I reply.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about. Tell me, sir, why are you talking to me?"

"What kind of a question is that? And don't ever call me 'sir'."

"O-Okay…um…I mean whenever I try to ask someone where I am, they stare at me and run off."

"Maybe you're the odd part of Jencks' subconscious. They always said he was a little loopy."

"Who is Jencks? What is a subconscious? Where am I?"

To my utter surprise, the man lets me go. Rubbing my arm where he'd grabbed me with his leather-gloved hand, I turn to face the man. Tall, looming over me. Rather burly. Looking extremely quizzical.

"Hmmph. You look familiar," he remarks, tilting his head to the side and squinting at me.

"I-I do? B-But we can't have met—"

"Last time I was in Jencks' mind, I saw you. I gunned you down."

"…What?"

"Do you remember? …Erm, this is kind of embarrassing." He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. "We were in a city setting, and it was snowing. You followed me up onto a roof, and I thought you were one of the projections after me, so I shot you without looking who you were."

When I was killed. On the rooftop of the apartment.

"It was you?" I say.

"Heh, yeah. And here I am, back again. Failed that last mission, here for a second try. Last one, probably. My boss won't take a second failure lightly. No, not at all."

"…Last one?"

"Yup. I—Now why are you looking at me like that, darling?"

I struggle to right my facial features, which have gone saggy all of a sudden.

"Come to think of it, why am I telling you all of this?" The man frowns suddenly, advancing on me. I am too nervous to back away, and find myself staring into his vast chest.

"Why aren't you getting the hell outta my way? I'm about to kill you again."

"B-But you…haven't answered my questions!"

He stops there. "Were you seriously asking me?"

"Yes."

"You really don't know?"

"…No, I don't."

The man backs away a step to scrutinize me. "Well, you are different from any other projection I've ever seen. A little lady, coming after me on her own. And talking! Never heard a projection talk more than a few grunts."

"What's a 'projection'?"

"A projection of the subject's subconscious. You really don't know?"

"…The 'subject's' 'subconscious'?"

He looks ready to give me a good shake. But right before he does, something pinned to the lapel of his coat crackles.

"Eames? You there?"

The man—Eames, it seems his name is—shakes off a glove, grabs the radio, and holds down a button. "Go on."

"Thirty-seventh floor, room 3709."

"Everyone's ready?"

"We're just waiting for you."

"I'll be there in a sec." His eyes flicker to me. "Hang on," he barks into the radio. "I got here a projection…who isn't exactly a projection. I don't think."

"…What?"

"Hard to explain. Can I bring her along?"

"Eames, just because she's pretty—"

"It's not that! You'll see when you meet her. She has absolutely no idea what's going on. She ran right up to me, asking where she was."

"You sure this isn't a trap?"

"Jencks has always set his men straight onto us, hasn't he? And we know that he hasn't undergone any sort of training to protect himself against extraction since the last mission. Wouldn't make sense if he suddenly adopted a change of tactics. Subconsciously, too."

Silence.

"Just meet her, at least. This is probably the last time we'll be in Jencks' mind, anyway."

"All right then. Just make sure you get your ass up here."

Eames sighs and lets go of his radio, before putting his glove back on and looking down at me.

"Well, you heard me."

"Yes, bu-ut—" Before I can finish, he's hoisted me up and is loping down the hallway with me over his shoulder.

"W-Wa-a-ait—"

"Sorry, can't wait."

He puts me down in the elevator.

"W-Where are we going?" I flatten myself against the wall of the elevator.

"To meet my team leader."

"Are you r-really not going to come back after this time?"

"Aw, darling, you can't miss me _that_ much."

"Are you?"

"…No, I don't think so."

"But…" I must look really heartbroken, because his eyes get really wide.

"Now don't get sad on me! God, no one's ever been so sad at the thought of never seeing me again. I can't imagine why you—we've only met for, what, five minutes now—"

But I only just got you. I only just found someone who would talk to me. Even if you won't directly answer anything I ask you—

"Please," I say, "can you…just…tell me what is going on?"

The man looked at me for a long time.

"Please. You said you won't be c-coming back, and I need to know—"

"All right, all right. Never met someone who says 'please' every other sentence. Just listen closely, okay? I may go a little fast."

I nod. _Finally_.

"Old classmate of mine named Charles Jencks. Kind of a nerdy little guy. Anyway, we're in his dream right now."

"In his dream?"

"Yup. I'm in here with my teammates. My teammates and I—well, we're trying to get some information out of him. We were hired by people from a company who didn't like him around to find out…something…and to relay it to them. Best way to catch someone unawares and vulnerable is in a dream."

"What are…projections of the…subconscious?"

"Usually, the subconscious of a person—the part of the mind that works without us knowing—will realize that there are intruders in his mind, and will manifest itself in the form of projections—of people—to beat out the intruders."

"Am I a projection?"

"…I don't think so."

"An intruder, then?"

"I'm not sure. Have any other projections—any other people—bothered you before?"

"No. They all run away from me, actually."

"That's odd." Eames rubs his neck, frowning thoughtfully at me. I can't help but squirm under his scrutiny.

"But I don'…feel like a projection. I think," I say, feeling unhelpful.

"…What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't…I wasn't aware that I was part of anyone's subconscious. I feel like I'm just a…normal person who's intruding in Jencks' dream, like you. Not like one of those projections, walking around as if they know what's going on."

The elevator hits floor thirty-seven, and the doors draw back—to reveal two well-dressed men pointing guns at us.

"Whoa, Bessie," Eames says, and holds out his arm to shove me behind him as he pulls out his gun. Within moments, the other gunmen are dead, and Eames is loping down the hallway, gun at the ready.

"Were they projections?" I ask, breathless.

"Yup. C'mon, we've gotta hurry." He strides down the hall, glancing at signs and room numbers, until he finds the right one. 3709. A mousy man brandishing a gun answers the knock.

"Is she the projection, Eames?" The mousy man asks as he lets us in, looking pointedly at me, not lowering his gun.

"Actually, I'm not so sure if she's a projection," says Eames. He closes the door securely, and leads me into the cramped office. A computer and several papers have been shoved to the edge of a rectangular table, and people are sitting on the table, surrounding an open briefcase. Every person in the room holds a gun. Every person looks up at me suspiciously.

The mousy man says, "So what're you planning to do with her? We still have to go on with the mission."

"I'm not sure," Eames says. "I'll still be here to monitor the dream session, of course. Not like I have a choice in that. Maybe while I'm monitoring, I'll catch a few projections. I need to ask them some questions. Like whether they remember Jencks' past dreams where we intruded, and whether they know her. Or each other."

The mousy man glances at me. "I'm sorry, I never got your name?"

Eames frowns. "Come to think of it, I never got it either."

They both stare at me.

"Darling, you have a name, right?" Eames says, almost gently. I shake my head no.

The mousy man shrugs. "Well, she's thought herself to be a projection this whole time, and has no knowledge of having been in reality before. If she has a name, she wouldn't remember it from anywhere."

"Is it all right with you if I call you…erm…Claire?" Eames says.

I shrug slowly.

"Claire it is," the mousy man says. "Now, Claire. You're sure that you have no memory of anything before you came here?"

"I remember the past two dreams that Jencks had. And I remember being in some sort of oblivion in between the dreams."

The mousy man rubs his temple. "I'm not sure if the other projections here remember past dreams or not. Eames, best find that out while we're gone." Eames nods.

The mousy man continues. "And what about your relationship to other projections? Do you talk to them? Do they talk to you?"

"Well," I say slowly, "last few times I tried talking to them, they just looked at me like I was crazy and ran away from me."

"Odd. The projections in our subjects' dreams always seem to be interacting with each other like normal people."

A woman in the room looks up suddenly, at the mousy man. "We've only got about eleven minutes left in this level, Trent. We have to get going."

Trent nods, sighing, and turns to the open briefcase everyone else is gathered around.

"Eames. Eleven minutes," he says in a warning tone as he unwinds a tube from an apparatus in the briefcase and tapes it to his wrist.

Eames nods. "I'll get as much as I can," he says as he strides over to the briefcase. At everyone's consent, he punches the button in the middle of the mass of wire and metal, and everyone in the room immediately, simultaneously, falls asleep.

That done, Eames crosses the room, opens the door cautiously, and slams it closed. Two gunshots tear through the door. "Get down," he yells at me as he pulls out his gun and opens the door to meet the attacker head-on. I shove myself in between two metal shelves and bite my finger to keep quiet. I don't hear any more gunshots, but I do hear muffled grunts and the general tousling of cloth.

"It's okay now," I hear Eames grunt. I peek around the edge of the shelf, and see him dragging in a thoroughly knocked-out projection—a wiry man with thick brown curls, a gun slipping from his fingers.

"Quick, grab his gun," Eames says as he hauls the man onto a table. I walk slowly to the gun and stare down at it.

"Grab it, before someone else gets it."

I continue staring.

Eames sighs. "Look, Claire, I know you're not the type to run around toting a gun, but you're going to have to arm yourself if you want to stay in this dream long enough to help me find out who you are."

I slowly bend down, slowly grasp the handle of the gun. It's covered in sweat.

"Good. Now help me tie this guy down." In a surprisingly short amount of time, we've got the man trussed securely to the desk with excessive lengths of extension cords, after shoving aside the bodies of the sleeping. Just as Eames ties the last knot, the man stirs. He struggles against his constraints for a moment. His eyes fly open.

"Now—no, calm down. Calm down." Eames holds the table steady as the man throws his entire weight against the cables, making the table tilt violently. The man works his jaws against the gag, and seethes at Eames.

After several awkward moments of struggling, the man's eyes find me. And he stops.

I watch as his face transforms slowly from feral rage to fearful astonishment.

Eames looks between the man and me. "Why's he looking at you like that?" he asks.

"I-I don't know. This happens every time a projection sees me," I stutter, backing away from the man tied to the table, unable to tear my gaze from his wide bloodshot eyes.

Eames sighs finally, grabs the man by the hair, and yanks the man's face around. I sink down onto the floor against the opposite wall.

"Can't have you freezing up Claire, right now of all times. Can you speak?"

The man stares at Eames, utterly bewildered. After a stretch of silence, the projection tries to turn his face back to me. I flinch. Eames yanks his face away from me again.

"Can you talk? Or can't you?"

The man stares awhile longer, before slowly nodding.

"Good, then." Eames uses his free hand to rip away the man's gag. At once, the man begins blabbering.

"Why—why—she's—alive?"

Eames looks at me, frowning.

The man continues raving. "She's—she shouldn't—here—! She's—she—"

"She what? Did she do something? Did something happen to her?" Eames demands.

"Tulloc—Tulloc—should have—she—!"

Eames sighs. "You seem to be a bit new at this speaking thing."

"Tulloc—said—!" The man seems to be physically struggling with his mouth, spitting the words out between explosive muscle jerks and muffled nonsense syllables.

"Who is Tulloc?"

"He—she—"

"_Who is Tulloc?_"

I rise slowly from the ground. Both men turn and look at me.

"Did you say 'Tulloc'?" I ask quietly. The man's face contorts to fearful shock once again, and his mouth freezes.

"Why, do you recognize it?" Eames asks.

"It sounds…vaguely familiar." I frown, staring at a knotted extension cord. The man tied underneath the cords jerks his leg at another attempt to escape.

"Tulloc—you—he—h—"

Eames slaps the gag back on with another sigh. "Tulloc is all I can get out of him." He then walks around the table. To me.

"You say you recognize the name 'Tulloc'?"

"I—it sounds familiar."

"Do you have any idea why?"

"No, I d-don't."

"This projection said something about you still being alive. Still being alive? Were you killed at some point?"

I shake my head, slowly at first, then faster. "No. Or—maybe—I can't remember. All I remember are the two past dreams. And the darkness in between the dreams."

Eames thinks for a moment, then looks back at the struggling man.

"He might remember the last dream, when I shot you. Hey…um…Mr. Projection. Do you, by any chance, remember Jencks' past dreams?"

The man shakes his head no, with 'obviously' written across his forehead.

"But _you_ remember them," Eames muses as he turns back around to scrutinize me.

"I don't know why," I quietly say. The man tied to the table is silent, staring.

"I don't know why," I say again, louder. Eames nods, looks away for a moment.

"Claire, I have to go. I have to—prepare to go back to the real world."

"Prepare?"

Eames yanks out his gun and shoots the projection point-blank. The man's head clunks back onto the table, his face still frozen in wide-eyed fear. I try to ignore the blood.

"Yes, prepare. We have to get back to the real world through some sort of physical…er…stimulation, I guess. The one we planned to use is the kick."

"The kick? What's a kick?" Eames has put away his gun and donned his gloves, and makes to leave the room. I follow, waiting for my answer.

"It's a bit complicated. In short, I have to create the sensation of falling."

"Falling?"

"I'm not sure if you've experienced this before, but when you're about to fall asleep, sometimes the sensation of falling suddenly comes out of nowhere and causes you to jerk awake. The sedative that my friends and I took to enter this dream allows for the sensation of falling to wake us up."

"But why can't you guys just…smack yourselves, or something?"

"The sedative's too strong. Now, help me out here," Eames says as he makes for the elevator.

"Help? How?" I struggle to keep up with his strides.

"Count the number of steps to the elevator."

I bow my head and begin counting, getting to thirty-four before Eames puts out an arm to keep me from slamming into the elevator doors. We enter as the doors slide open, and Eames presses the button for floor thirty-six.

"Now take the same number of steps at the same stride," Eames says, stepping out of the elevator to do the same. When we both stop, we're standing outside a door—3634.

"Before the next mission, I've got to get the architect to step up his room-numbering skills," Eames mutters as he kicks open the door, breaking the lock. From inside his jacket, he retrieves several slim, rectangular, box-like contraptions, bound together with string that falls away easily to his prying fingers. Along the four walls of the office room, he places the rectangular boxes, and punches the red button in the center of the boxes. At his push, the lights blink red, on and off, on and off.

"Come on," he says hurriedly, pulling me by the arm, as he walks out of the room. After propping the door closed, Eames turns back for the elevator. In the room with all the sleeping people and the dead projection, Eames lines the room with more of the rectangular boxes. Just as he finishes punching the last red button, I hear music—distorted, convulsive music—flooding in through the walls, through the ceiling.

Eames looks up, then fumbles around in Trent's pocket for a remote control. "I've gotta go now."

My hands find his sleeve. "Wait! Y-You're sure that—that you can't—"

Eames looks at me strangely for a moment, then pushes a strand of my hair behind my ear with a large gloved hand. "Don't miss me so much, darling, it makes me nervous. Trust me, my team and I'll come back as soon as we can."

"You will?"

"I'm willing to bet it. Trent will be all over your case, he's never met someone in your situation before."

The music gets louder. I feel Eames' forearm muscles tense under his jacket. Clenching tighter to his sleeve, I say, "Promise me you will."

He looks at me strangely again, then gives a grunt—which I think he meant to be a laugh.

"I promise," he says, patting my hair. "But you really shouldn't hold onto a promise from _me_, of all people."

As his hand lifts from my head, the music becomes ear-splittingly loud. Eames looks at me for one last moment, and punches a button on the remote control. The blinking lights on the rectangular boxes disappear for a moment; then, in a flash of white light, they explode. The floor crumbles beneath me, and I find myself free-falling. Eames' sleeve is wrenched from my hands, and every scrap of light is wiped out by a paintbrush of black.

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><p><strong>AN**: Trippy trippy! 8D (At least, I like to think so. Hmmph.)

Anyways, just an idea that's been hovering around my head for awhile. Please review! I need to know if any of you see contradictions, things that don't make sense.

:D

-Sanded Silk-


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Chapter le two.

**Disclaimer**: Don't own anything.

-Sanded Silk-

* * *

><p>As I spin through oblivion, slowly, thinking, I see Eames' face materialize in the darkness multiple times, before slipping into nothingness, fading back to black.<p>

As yet another image floats away, just beyond my grasp, I slam into something. Thinking that I am about to enter another dream, I brace myself for the wipeout of light, but none comes. Putting out my hands, I find that I am pressed up against some kind of…wall.

A wall? In Jencks' mind? If that's where I am?

Thinking that maybe I'm touching the inside of his head, I feel around, expecting squishiness and overall grossness, but it's hard and cold, like metal. I try knocking on it. Solid, thick.

I feel along the wall, and come to a corner, folding in on me. Running my hands along this wall, I eventually find that I am in some sort of box.

But I wasn't before! I was floating around, freely, sort of lost. I press my hands against the metal, then tap along the walls, going across each wall slowly. Not a single weak spot.

_Oh, God._

Without thinking, my mind turns to Eames. His quick smile, gruff confidence. What would he tell me to do?

Stay calm?

Probably. I nod to myself, trying to inspire a little more steadiness in my limbs. Whatever kind of box I'm in, it doesn't seem to be closing in slowly or anything scary like that. Frustrated by the darkness, I run my hands along the walls again, unable to think of something else to do.

-o-o-

It seems to be ages in this box before something happens. Before light washes before my eyes. Before I find myself in another sort of office building.

I stand there, shocked, for a moment, ignoring the strange stares from other projections. Wasn't I in a box just now? So how did I get out, into this dream? I had thought that the box would bar me from all later dreams, would confine me for the whole of Jencks' life.

Slowly, I begin to walk.

"Eames?" I call quietly, more to myself than to anyone else. I can see the cityscape through the gaping windows in the wide doors, but I don't want to go outside. Somehow, I know he's in here. Eames?

"E-Eames?" I call a little louder, stumbling on his name. Some of the projections look at me sharply, so I stop calling and just wander around aimlessly, up and down gaping staircases, past offices, past rooms of cubicles, and on.

Hand on my shoulder.

"Claire! Finally found you," Eames huffs when I whip around, ready to scream.

He puts his hands up at the look on my face. "Whoa. Not going to hurt you, don't look at me like that."

I recompose my face.

"H-Hi," I say. He nods back, still trying to catch his breath.

"So, if you're back, I take it you found something?" I ask after a beat.

He nods, then turns his head to look over his shoulder. "Guys, it's her."

From around several corners in the hallway emerge five men and women. I recognize Trent. Beside him walks a bent old man, the only one of the crowd who is unarmed and looks utterly harmless. He walks right up to me, staring at me intently.

"Ah, yes," he says, looking at my face closely, nodding. "It is you."

I look over at Eames.

"Claire, this is Dr. Andrew Tulloc," Eames says, waving at the bent old man staring at my face. "He was Jencks' psychiatrist shortly before now. He's got something to say to you."

"To m-me?"

"You," Dr. Tulloc says, eyes gleaming, "are a very, very special part of Mr. Jencks, my dear. You say your name is Claire?"

"U-Um—Eames calls me C-Claire."

"Ah, I see. I see. Well, Claire, shall we find some empty office to sit down in and talk? This may take a long time."

"O-Okay…?" I look at Eames, panicking. He smiles a small smile at me, and follows me closely.

In the office room, Dr. Tulloc settles himself in the only actual chair available and looks at me a long time before talking.

"What a strange case you are," he says. "I didn't believe your friends when they told me about you, but now that I see you with my own two eyes…this is amazing. Simply baffling."

"W-What is?" I squeak.

"You, my dear."

"Me? W-Why?"

Eames cuts in. "Just tell her what you did."

There is an uncomfortable silence.

Then, Dr. Tulloc speaks, still smiling.

"Several months ago, Mr. Charles Jencks, whose mind we are presently in, asked me for some very…special help. He was quickly ascending the stairs of corporate glory, you see, but something was in his way—himself."

"H-How?"

"Well, only parts of himself. He has the brains to do what he does, and the willpower, and the focus. But he had terrible qualms about interacting socially. Not just speech-giving—he would get shaky and stuttery around his assistants. He moved about like a nervous mouse, he approached people as if he were approaching kings. He was, in short, ridiculously hard to respect.

"So, what he wanted me to do was to find some way to completely eliminate these parts of him that held him back so. After awhile, we came up with an idea—going into his mind in a dream, and eliminating the parts of his subconscious—the deepest roots of his personality—that caused his debilitating traits to manifest."

Something deep in my stomach begins to twist, slowly. Dr. Tulloc's smile looks more and more maniacal, more and more familiar. I know who he is. Suddenly, I know.

"I remember you," I say quietly.

"Ah, you do?"

When I blink to hold back the tears, a vision flashes across my eyelids—I am in several different forms, several different facets all manifested by different projections. Bound together. Screaming in pain.

The tears spill forward.

"You killed us," I whisper. "You killed me."

"Very good. So you do remember after all," Dr. Tulloc says, looking pleasantly surprised. "I studied the works of several ancient experts of the mind, people who theorized on ways to permanently erase parts of the subconscious. Of course, I knew that simply shooting you in the head wouldn't do much good—you would just manifest again in the next dream."

"You tried hooking us all up to a sleep machine," I whisper, the words forced out in awkward jerks by my tears. "We'd never wake up again. But before that—"

"Yes, before that. Well, I don't have to explicitly relive those memories for you, do I?"

I bury my face in my hands.

"Claire?" Eames' hand on my shoulder. "What did he do?"

Dr. Tulloc must have not told Eames and his team. Out of shame, I hope.

"He tied us together. He—tortured u-us. Somehow fused us, formed me. I don't know how he—how long he—he—"

Eames turns my face in towards his shoulder, and lets me soak his suit jacket with my very capable tear ducts.

"I fused the projections into one, into Claire. She is the embodiment of all the traits that Mr. Jencks wanted me to eliminate, and I thought maybe fusing the projections into one form would make my life a little easier. For your sakes, I will not go into how I accomplished that."

Eames' hand tightens on my shoulder.

Dr. Tulloc nods to himself. "Yes, I did some terrible things. Terrible. There is a special place in hell for people like me."

"Shut up," Eames grounds through his teeth.

Dr. Tulloc continues, unfazed. "But considering what I've done, considering the torture Claire went through…the fact that she's still alive is almost impossible to grasp," Dr. Tulloc says, softly, amazed. His voice is drowned out of my consciousness as Eames puts his arm around my face, shields me from my killer.

-o-o-

I am now used to the feel of Eames' hand on my shoulder.

But, unfortunately, not yet to Dr. Tulloc's presence.

He doesn't bother with the details of what he tried on me. Neither Eames nor I, nor any of the other team members, really need to hear that.

"So now what?" Dr. Tulloc asks suddenly, after a bout of silence.

"What?" Someone says.

"You've got me here, you've got this Claire here, and everyone else. Claire knows what she was."

"But not what she is," Eames says, somewhat nastily.

"That is something I do not know either. I believe that Claire is still the embodiment of all the projections representing Mr. Jencks' 'bad' traits, but how she managed to survive, and what she is now—I'm not so sure."

"Do you…" Eames looks down at me for a moment, then back up at Dr. Tulloc. "Do you know any way we can get Claire out of Jencks' mind?"

Dr. Tulloc shakes his head. "I'm sorry, I never looked into the opposite of what I was looking for. But I'm willing to look."

Eames looks at him for a bit, then leans forward with his elbows on his knees, intent. "What are your rates?" He asks, gruffly.

Dr. Tulloc guffaws, visibly amused. "For this, I'd have no rates. I'm going into this for pure knowledge, no money involved. Though I am grateful for the offer."

"So you'll help us get Claire out of here?" Trent asks carefully. Dr. Tulloc nods.

After a quick staredown between Dr. Tulloc and Trent, Trent turns and whispers something to a shorter man with windswept platinum-blond hair. The man nods, then hurls himself out the window. Eames pulls me back when I flinch.

"It's all right. Once he dies in this dream, he'll wake up in the real world," Eames tells me, and I sit back down, slightly embarrassed.

A moment later, Dr. Tulloc suddenly fizzes, and is gone.

"I had Michael take Dr. Tulloc out of the dream, so that we can talk a little more freely," Trent informs the rest of the room.

"Now then." Trent walks back and forth before me. "I want to know, first of all, whether you actually want to leave Jencks' mind."

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Whatever we try, it may hurt you. Permanently. You may be stuck in some kind of limbo for the rest of your life."

I take a deep breath, not bothering to ask what "limbo" means. I looked up at Eames, who is looking right back at me, asking the question silently.

"I…want to leave," I say, nodding to add to the confirmation. Trent nods.

"Good. Okay. We've got to spend a little more time with Dr. Tulloc, find out what he's like. I'm not exactly sure whether we can trust him. He did try to kill you in the past, after all."

"I don't trust the guy," Eames says, straightforwardly.

"I really don't either," Trent says with a sigh. "But it doesn't seem like we have much of a choice, now that he knows Claire is still alive. You know he won't lay off on us now."

The team mumbles.

"B-Before you all leave," I say timidly, "I should say that while I was in the…oblivion sort of place…um, between the last dream and this one, I was trapped in a box."

"A box?" Trent frowns.

"While I was in Mr. Jencks' mind, I just suddenly became aware that I was in some sort of rectangular…b-box…thing. I couldn't find any opening, or any weak spot."

"Maybe he's becoming aware that the part he thought was eliminated is still there," Eames muses, looking at Trent.

"And he's reacting to it, trying to contain it," Trent finishes, nodding. "Could be."

"So what will happen to me?" I ask quietly.

"Hard to say. We don't know much more than you do."

"O-Oh."

Eames looks at me for a long moment. "As much as I hate to, I believe Tulloc. I do remember a point in time when Jencks suddenly became uncharacteristically confident and stutter-free. Honestly, you do seem like the perfect embodiment of all the traits that he suddenly, mysteriously lost. That stutter, especially."

My chin tucks down, and I look down at my feet.

"But that's okay," Eames says, tightening the arm he has around my back, "because you're absolutely adorable the way you are."

I look up at him slowly, eyes wide. "Really?"

He smiles, ruffles my hair. "Yes, really."

"All right," Trent says, clapping his hands together. "For now, Claire, you've got to hang on a little longer in Jencks' mind, while we try to get you out of here. I can't say how long it'll be, so you may have to push your patience with us."

"That's fine."

"Good, then. And just in time, I think Michael should be—"

Suddenly, everyone fizzes, and disappears. I look at where Eames was sitting for a moment, confounded.

Everything snaps, crumbles, swirls into black.

-o-o-

I am in the box. And it seems to be getting smaller. When I stretch my arms over my head and my toes down in the opposite direction, I can barely touch two parallel walls of the box—something I could not do before.

I curl into a ball, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. Please, I beg silently, please don't hold me in. Please don't try to kill me again.

It is now I realize that I am surrounded by perfect silence. Before, when I was just lolling freely in a river of oblivion, and there seemed to be some sort of buzzing, or water lapping at a shore, or the hum of a refrigerator, or _something_—I couldn't remember what. But the silence here, in this box, is complete. There isn't even the "ringing" that some hear in quiet rooms; there is just nothing. Which scares me.

My face finds itself in my lap, and I leave it there, too scared, too tired to move. Please let me out soon, please let me see light again, outside of this box, in a dream—just anywhere but here.

Time itself seems to warp as I stay in the box, curled up. Some moments feel slow and sluggish—others seem to speed by, quickly, whipping over my body. I try to shrug off these weird sensations, that something is wrong, that time itself isn't ticking mechanically as it should, and I focus instead on Eames—his face, his height, build, gloves, tendency to dress well. Mostly his voice. I imagine what he might be doing at certain moments. Maybe right now, he's beating the crap out of Dr. Tulloc. Maybe right now, he's consulting with his team members, researching late into the night to get me out.

And then I realize how narcissistic I'm being. Maybe he's not thinking about me at all—maybe he's living his own life. Maybe he's sleeping, or eating, or doing laundry. Though I can't quite picture him lugging around a basket of rumpled clothing.

I press my face a little deeper into my knees. Thinking of him seems the make the time speed by a little faster, so I focus a little more on him. A little more on the hair, the eyes, the straight nose.

A flash of light.

-o-o-

A hospital, it seems? I can't quite tell where I am.

I get up from the floor, and look around. Something inside me twists as I take in my surroundings. Everything seems familiar, but not in a comforting way. Not at all.

A woman, bleeding and wailing, tugging along a child, shoves by me and grabs the nearest unformed doctor, demanding something. I watch her for awhile, then turn around to the main entrance in time to see Eames burst in.

"You're here," he says, a little out of breath. "Good. I thought maybe they'd—nevermind. Are you all right?"

"Y-Yes," I mumble. He doesn't seem to hear me, but looks me up and down and deems me fit to pass his inspection.

"Come on, now." He grabs my by the hand and hustles me into the elevator, before any projections can stop us. He searches the buttons, and hits the one for the top floor.

"Let me take a look at you," he says after taking a deep, ragged breath. He takes my face in his hands, and frowns.

"You look a little pale, darling. Everything okay? Jencks still has you in that box?"

"The box is getting smaller," I manage as he manhandles my cheeks, trying to squeeze out some color, which I know I am desperately missing.

"Smaller? That's no good. But Tulloc thinks he's got an idea that will work," Eames says, releasing my face.

"W-What? Really?" I say, rubbing my cheeks.

"Yeah. Our chemist provided us with a nice, strong sedative, so we should have at least two-and-a-half hours on this level; but we've got to hurry. Trent and the others should be waiting where I'm taking you."

"How did you end up outside the hospital?"

"I'm not sure." Eames rubs his hair.

"He says he'll get me out of h-here?" I mumble.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

Eames looks down at me for a moment. "Don't worry, darling, nothing's going to happen to you, I'll make sure. Tulloc—well, better let him explain everything to you."

"O-Okay."

"That stutter." Eames smirks down at me. "Jencks lost it for awhile, but it's come back. I heard he's after Tulloc again."

"What about e-everything else? Being timid, and shy, and—and everything else?"

"All coming back, too."

"He must know that I'm still here," I say quietly.

"I think he does," Eames says, nodding grimly.

The elevator doors open, and we step out into a cool, sterile, unnervingly quiet hallway.

"This way," Eames says quietly, steering me left. We pass rooms, several of them, so many that I lose count. As we hurry along, the twisting sensation in my stomach becomes more and more violent. Suddenly, I know where I am. I stop short.

"Why are you taking me there?" I ask quietly, shakily, a hand to my mouth. Eames looks at me, and sees that I know.

"Tulloc has some crazy theory that this is the way to get you out of Jencks' mind. It runs high in emotion, in tension. All of which we'll need, apparently."

"But why?" I whisper.

Eames shakes his head. "I don't know why. Tulloc only told Trent some vague ideas; he keeps everything else to himself. But whatever happens, Claire, I'm not going to let him—let anyone—hurt you. If that means keeping you in Jencks' mind, then I'll do that—as long as it means you'll be okay."

"But what if—what if—?" What if everything goes wrong? What if you're not there?

"For now, we can't worry about that," Eames says. "We've only got so much time, and we need to use it as effectively as we can. Please understand, Claire. I wouldn't let Tulloc anywhere near you, but he's the only one out of us all who knows enough to head you in some direction."

I shake my head, but say okay. Eames keeps his hand on my arm as we walk down the dim hallway, down the room on the very end, the room that makes my insides shake.

-o-o-

"Claire," Dr. Tulloc says, smiling, when he looks up and sees me enter the room. "I'd like you to meet someone."

Sitting in a chair near the hospital bed is a man I have never seen before, but know instantly.

"This is Mr. Charles Jencks. Mr. Jencks, this is the part of your subconscious that you tried to eliminate months ago, who currently goes by the name 'Claire'."

I don't quite know how to react. Neither does Mr. Jencks.

"Trent and Co., I want you all to know first off that I didn't invite Mr. Jencks here to make Claire feel uncomfortable or such. He's here so that he knows exactly what's going on. Complete honesty with the subject—something I value highly."

Eames narrows his eyes at Dr. Tulloc, not replying.

"We understand," Trent quickly says. Then, to Mr. Jencks: "In case Dr. Tulloc tried to gloss anything over, here's the deal: Claire lived. She's here with us still—with you still—and wants out, permanently, so we're trying to get her out."

Mr. Jencks thinks for awhile, looking visibly shaken. When he speaks, his voice sounds barely used. "I-If this means she will be out of me, permanently, then I have no objections. However, I-I'd like to know…um…what Dr. Tulloc has in mind…?"

"Well, let me say first off that what I want to try is a process that should theoretically work, not a fact-based protocol. My previous operation with Claire didn't go as planned, seeing as she's still _here_, so I can't say much about how this operation will turn out. But in order for it to have any chance of working, I need you all to cooperate, one hundred percent. No exceptions."

I look down, to the side, anywhere other than Dr. Tulloc's face. Finally, Eames puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to meet his eyes.

"Claire, do you want to leave?"

"Yes."

"Do you want that enough to endure pain?"

I look deep into Eames' eyes. It's the only thing I can do to keep myself from thinking too much.

"Yes," I whisper.

"Then I can't stop Tulloc if he hurts you and says it's supposed to help you get out," Eames says quietly, searching my face.

I swallow. "I know." It comes out sounding like a lost kitten's whimper.

Eames palms my forehead, as if casting a protective spell. "Okay. I'll be right here. I'm not going anywhere. Just…just…yeah."

"Okay."

He pats my arm, my cheek, and lets me go. I turn around to face Dr. Tulloc.

He smiles and gets up. "Sit down here, please," he says, patting the chair across from Mr. Jencks. I sit down, but keep my eyes averted from the man who wanted—wants—me killed.

"Well, no sense in waiting," Dr. Tulloc says, clapping his hands together and grinning.

"Shall we start, then?" He asks no one in particular.

I close my eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Sorry for the long wait and short update, summer stuff and all…

I'll try to get the next one crankin'. Please bear with me and my upstart schedule, and thanks to **Keepsake30** for the review :D

-Sanded Silk-


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Chapter third. Sorry for the slight delay. /gets hit by a tomato/

**Disclaimer:** lalala, dun own anything.

-Sanded Silk-

* * *

><p>"First of all, before we move any further," Dr. Tulloc says, "I need Claire to meet my sister."<p>

Silence.

"Your sister?" I say quietly.

"She's here, with us. You can walk up now, Agnes."

It's then I realize that someone in the scant crowd of Eames' coworkers looks out of place. There is a woman standing silently behind everyone else, with her back against the wall. Her grey hair is pulled back and partially hidden by a long, dark scarf, wrapped around her head and shoulders several times, leaving only a fraction of her face in view. Her large eyes, viridian, lucid, stare at me with the same hunger that I find in Dr. Tulloc's eyes.

"Agnes Tulloc is a specialist in anatomy."

"Just so everyone here knows, I was against her interference," Trent puts in.

"Why?" I ask.

"Agnes," Dr. Tulloc says, ignoring the interruption, "has knowledge that extends beyond the purely fact-based anatomy and biochemistry, into a more…shall we say, paranormal field."

"P-Paranormal?"

"You're going to need a body to inhabit if you are to go to earth," Dr. Tulloc says matter-of-factly. "And Agnes here was kind enough to create a body for you."

"Create?"

"She's created a body—"

"_What_?"

"—that looks more or less like Claire, according to our description. We were pretty close, weren't we, Agnes?"

Agnes doesn't speak, only looks at me with those sharp eyes. Then, she says, in a gravelly voice, "I believe you were very off in your description, brother. Perhaps you got her overall physique down, but you will have to let me out of here to fix up that face. Her eyes aren't quite that shade of blue, and her chin isn't quite so square, and her nose—"

"You have assorted body parts lying around to use?" Trent asks, flabbergasted.

"No, she created it from scratch. Built it. Well, of course, some major body tissues were taken from other bodies—"

"_What_?"

"—because those require a level of energy that she no longer has, but the DNA, for instance, was built. Nucleotide by nucleotide. She can't change anything significantly now, but she can mold the face into a slightly different shape."

"This is…" Trent trails off, looking sick.

I look over at Eames, who is holding his stomach."So that's what the body under the sheets was for," he says quietly. "That's why you insisted that we describe Claire so carefully. I thought you were just…"

Agnes nods. I imagine she's smiling behind that scarf.

"But how do you plan to channel Claire's being into that body?" someone asks.

"Agnes must first go—"

Agnes disappears.

"Ah," Dr. Tulloc says, "just in time. The person monitoring us as we sleep was instructed to withdraw Agnes at a given time—I'm guessing we just passed that moment in reality. Anyway, Agnes will ready the body—final touches—and prepare for the channeling process."

Dr. Tulloc says all of this calmly, smoothly, as if he'd rehearsed it—as if he told it to a different crowd of astonished people every day.

He looks around himself. "Are we all clear?" he asks.

Silence.

He continues, businesslike. "I must make it clear to you, Mr. Jencks, that for the time being you must unshackle the part of you that is Claire. You must let yourself be you. I've been informed that of late, she's been boxed in your subconscious, and this could pose risks to her wellbeing."

"I understand," Mr. Jencks mumbles, refusing to look me in the face. Which doesn't matter—I don't dare look at him, either. The idea of my own body in reality, composed of parts of other bodies—suddenly, I'm not so sure if I want to do this.

"All right. No point in stalling now, is there?" Dr. Tulloc says, looking the cheeriest of us all. I see Trent and Eames and everyone else tighten their hands around their guns.

"Wait," Eames says, rushing forward. Dr. Tulloc seems to suppress a sigh.

"If you do end up getting out of here, but you're lost, or anything," Eames says to me, "this is my phone number. I don't really have an address that you can turn up at, but I do have a cell phone, thank God," Eames mumbles as he shoves towards me a scrap of paper with something scribbled down in pen. I take it with shaking hands, and plant it deep in my pants pocket, not entirely sure if I'll find it there when I get out. If I get out.

"Are we done?" Dr. Tulloc asks.

Eames pats my head, and backs away.

"One thing," I mumble.

"Hm?"

"Please, t-tell me what you're planning,"

"What's that?" Dr. Tulloc bends down.

"Please tell me what you're planning," I say haltingly, a little louder.

"Ah. What I'm planning. Well, I was thinking about what you really are these past few weeks. You're not quite a projection, but you're not just a random person loafing around in someone else's subconscious, either. You're sort of both. So, I've decided to try a string of mundane ways of getting normal humans out of other humans' dreams. A kick, for example. Eames' favorite."

Eames nods, albeit unsmiling.

"But the first time I met Eames, he used the kick to get himself and his teammates out of Mr. Je-Jencks' mind, and I wasn't pulled out with them."

"And this is where Mr. Jencks himself comes in. With him here, with his desire to eject you from his mind so physically close to you, and with your desire to get out of his mind so physically close to _him_…well, I was wondering if physical closeness might factor in somewhere or other. Now, granted, my hypothesis isn't really backed by any research, but if you two are willing to try it, then I can't refuse."

"Physical closeness? That's the most absurd—" Trent spits.

"I understand what you may think," Dr. Tulloc cuts in smoothly. "It's wishy-washy at best. But do you have a better idea? Because I don't."

His challenge is unmet—at least, verbally. He turns back to Mr. Jencks, to me.

"Now. I know that the sedative administered will give us several hours—was it two? I don't remember—but the kick should set in at about the end of the first hour, which is creeping upon us as we speak.

"When we experience the kick, it's expected that we all return to the real world, while Claire stays in Mr. Jencks' mind, right? This time, I'd like to try having Mr. Jencks and Claire holding onto each other in some way—hands, for instance—and focusing all their energy, all their being, on getting Claire out."

"This is ridiculous," Trent explodes. "How is something as intangible and fallible as someone's willpower going to get Claire into the real world? And even if she does, by some miracle, get dumped out of here, she's got some crazy Victor Frankenstein waiting for her on the other end—"

"My theory behind all this is that this _is_ Mr. Jencks' mind, after all. This is his to familiarize himself with, his to control. What goes on in here, he is in charge of. Of course, he cannot control what and how his subconscious processes information, but he can control other aspects of it—for instance, how much of his instincts he should trust, his instincts being products of his subconscious puffing away."

"And what does that have to do with Claire? With eliminating a part of his subconscious?"

"In a way, he's not eliminating her; just ejecting her. I think the difference, though slim, is a difference nonetheless."

"Enough to get her out of here? And what's with the physical contact?" Trent gets more and more aggressive with each thought.

"If we fail, we always have next time," Dr. Tulloc states calmly.

"And what if Jencks falls into some sort of limbo? What if something happens to Claire—she gets ripped apart, or something?"

Ripped apart?

"We will find a way. If you're going to believe anything I say, believe that."

"How can you—?" Trent gives up mid-sentence, throwing his hands up into the air.

"The physical contact, I think," Dr. Tulloc says after a beat, "and the tension of the memories that make up this room, should enhance whatever force is needed to get Claire out. For now, this is the best I can do."

"If you weren't prepared, then why did you insist on getting us all here so soon?" Eames demands. He's moved closer to me than when I last looked.

"I couldn't wait," Dr. Tulloc says simply, childishly.

I feel the sudden urge to hurl.

"I—" and I lean over the side of the chair.

-o-o-

"Are you okay now?" Eames asks, concerned, his hand on my heaving back.

I manage a nod. The floor is clean; nothing came out but a choked, squashed gasp of air.

I sit back up, pressing my shoulders against the cold back of the chair, looking down at my white, clenched knuckles.

Eames pulls off his glove to feel my forehead. Though I do feel feverish, I don't think that the common cold is the root of my problems.

"We must prepare for the kick," Dr. Tulloc says bluntly. "Mr. Eames, please, step away."

Eames puts his ungloved hand over one of my clenched hands, then stands up and backs away reluctantly, again.

"All right. Now, Mr. Jencks, Claire. Scoot forward in your chairs a little, and…let's start with grasping hands for now," Dr. Tulloc says.

Without looking up, without breathing, I scoot my behind forward in the chair and reach out my limp hands for Mr. Jencks to take, awkwardly. His hands are extremely sweaty. I'm sure mine are too.

"Now. Focus all of your energy, all of your being, on what it is we want from this today. Mr. Jencks, you want Claire out of your mind, so that you can reach corporate godhood. Claire, you want out of Mr. Jencks' mind, because…well, you hate it in here, don't you?"

I nod. It's true—I do hate it here. No freedom, no control. Just a metal box, and a longing for the next dream to occur, for human contact that is so preciously rare in Mr. Jencks' mind.

"Then focus on that. Focus on why it is you're here, today, right now."

I focus on it.

"Keep this energy up. Keep every fiber in your body tense, waiting. Focus on what you want. _Don't break focus_."

I squeeze my eyes further shut. The sense of foreboding creeps upon me, but I try to push it away.

And then the floor falls through.

In this instant, something happens, something snaps. I can't tell if it is on my end, or on Mr. Jencks' end, or maybe it is Dr. Tulloc's fault, or maybe Agnes botched something—maybe I lost my will, maybe Mr. Jencks weakened—whatever happened, everything is wrenched from my hands. I fling my hands about, can't find Mr. Jencks—yell, can't hear anything besides the crashing of rubble.

The chair falls away underneath me, and I am freefalling, not thinking at all about getting out of Mr. Jencks' mind, but wondering if I'll _survive_.

The tension breaks, as if cool, soothing air had seeped in when the floor fell through. I didn't quite notice the tension before, but now that it's gone, I feel—acutely—its absence. I wonder at how I managed to miss the crackling, the anxiety

It's as if time has suddenly slowed down. So much more thought, so much more emotion, is packed into every nanosecond. As I turn in the air, a thousand thoughts run through my head. Something went wrong. Something _feels _wrong. What went wrong? Did something go wrong in the first place? What will happen to Mr. Jencks, to Eames, to me?

Everything goes black.

-o-o-

Pillows.

This is strange. I thought, for some reason, that I was back in Mr. Jencks' mind, in the metal box, confined, in the dark. But I open my eyes, and find myself lying, still fully clothed, on a mattress with more than enough pillows fluffed up around me.

I sit up, battling back the pillows, to look around me.

I am wearing what I had been wearing at the hospital. With a start, I remember the piece of paper that Eames gave me. I fumble for the pocket, and produce the scrap of paper, still very much intact, much to my relief.

I plant the precious piece of paper back deep in my pocket. When I succeed in getting out of bed, I cross the sleek hardwood floors covered sparsely by thick rugs, open the bedroom door and slowly step outside, into a dimly-lit hallway with a high ceiling and a soft carpet. I feel the carpet hesitantly with my toes—my shoes are in the bathroom—and, finding it harmless, turn back into the bedroom to put on my shoes.

I look around myself once I step back into the wide hallway and wander into the room at the end of the hall. I seem to be in some sort of living room, in a vast house.

There is a window nearby, spanning an entire wall. I walk to it, weaving my way around cushioned love seats, low sofas, and a steel-and-glass coffee table, and look out.

On the distant ground outside, I see grass, then a tree, then a fence, then a beach, and then an endless, open sea. The simple beauty and peaceful stillness of the view makes me sit down on a nearby love seat and stare for several minutes.

When I put my hand down to lean on it, I feel—a phone.

A phone?

I dig out the scrap of paper again, and study the paper carefully, and dial each number slowly, deliberately. Holding the ear piece to my ear, I listen intently.

No ringing—just an empty, shrill beeping.

I hang up, and dial again, double checking every number. Still, nothing but the beeping.

I study each number written on the paper. None of the numbers look deformed or mutilated or otherwise deceptive; Eames' handwriting, though in want of a little improvement, is decent. I check the phone cord—soundly plugged in.

Perhaps something did go wrong, after all.

I sit on the love seat, the lovely view outside forgotten, desperately wondering what to do.

Dangling from the neck of the phone is a slip of paper, neatly cut, that I didn't notice in my hurry. Idly, I pick at it.

Unfolded, it lists the proper sequences of numbers to dial for long-distance phone calls. I recognize the names of the countries, the regions, but I have no idea where I might find Eames. I immediately begin trying each one.

As I am in the middle of dialing the third number, something on the beach catches my eye. I look out momentarily, thinking it might be a bird.

The object turns out to be rather humanoid. It pauses midstride to lift a hand to its eyes, and seems to tilt its head towards my window. Towards me. After a moment, it continues, walks for the house I am in.

I stay rooted to the spot.

As it nears, I see that it is wearing a suit, and thick gloves, and is carrying a gun, and looks very much like Eames.

The phone clatters onto the table. I rush outside.

I've never tried running in sand before. It's rather difficult.

Eames sees me coming towards him, and picks up his pace. Within seconds, we're standing in front of each other.

"Your house is the only house for miles," he says in greeting. "At least, as far as I can see."

Something is odd about him, now that I am up close. I reach out to touch his dress jacket, and it seems real enough—but something is off. He seems a little transparent, just around the edges.

"You're…I can see through some of you," I whisper.

"Really?" Eames looks at himself, at his fingers, his shoes, the hems of his clothes. "I don't see anything wrong," he says, sounding confused.

I blink a few times. The transparency seems to abate, and I shrug it off. Maybe I'm just seeing things.

"Do you want to come inside?" I ask him, and he nods, smiling at me.

-o-o-

No telling how much time I spent in this strange, lonesome, utterly satisfying world. The sun and the moon seemed to take months to cross the sky in their respective paths. The house seemed to provide—for itself and for its occupants. Eames and I never went hungry, never went cold.

The ocean outside was eternally cool, lapping gently at the shore, peaceful, docile. Nothing broke its surface, save the occasional breeze. There were no animals. There was a single tree by the back door that endlessly bore peaches—fuzzed, supple, bursting with sweet juice and sunny flavor; my absolute favorite fruit.

I couldn't tell the passage of time. I didn't care. I spent as much time as I could with Eames. I ate with him, sat in the living room with him, talked with him, nestled under his arm when the moon hung, low and large, in the sky. He and I talked—countless conversations, of which I remember none. I only know that we spent hours upon hours talking, talking, laughing, before settling into long, deep, comforting silences.

Not once do I remember sleeping, or feeling the need to.

There was a nagging in my mind, deep in the back of my head; it teased and tickled at times, trying to tell me that something was wrong, something was out of place. I had the vague feeling that something was odd about this haven, this house and beach and ocean and endless sky. Even the peaches, as good as they were—even Eames—seemed vaguely strange. But I never took heed. Whenever the nagging came, I quashed it with my desire to stay, to live this life forever.

The sun rose and set countless times. The moon rose and set as well, never waxing, never waning, always full and large and low over the horizon. I sank deeper and deeper into this trance, this bottomless lake of bliss.

One day, one hour, I look out the window casually while talking to Eames, and see something moving in the water.

"Look," I say, pointing. Eames gets up from the loveseat to stand by me, to peer out the window.

"Do you see that?"

No answer.

"Eames?"

No answer. Confused at his silence, I turn around.

Eames is gone.

Frantically, I search the room, then the hallway.

"Eames?" The cry rises in my throat. Suddenly, the room, the whole house, feels constricting. I am in the metal box again. Mr. Jencks—Dr. Tulloc—

Stumbling, gasping, I fight my way out of the house, and crumple down onto the sand outside.

The thing in the water as gotten to the beach, washed up, looking dreadfully still. As I watch it, it slowly lifts its head, then its torso, until it is sitting upright.

But—

I get up, walk towards it. The figure—a man—doesn't seem to see me. Wiping water from his eyes, he coughs up curses.

I stop several feet away from him. The nagging comes back. Even from this distance, I can see that something about this figure is different from my surroundings. He is real, absolutely opaque, completely and solidly here. No trace of vague strangeness, of dreamy unreality. No undercurrent of dark doubt under the light, happy hallucinations.

"Eames?" I whisper.

He looks up.

"Darling," he breathes. "Claire."

"But weren't you…weren't you…?" I ask, sinking down into the sand beside him. The acute fear I felt after discovering him gone dissipates, settles on the sand. Confusion blooms.

"Wasn't I what?" he blunders, passing a hand over his face again before looking at me.

"Weren't you inside just now? With me?"

"Where? In that house?" he asks, looking confused.

I nod.

"No, I just got here," he says. "Nearly drowned."

"But…"

"Why are you still so young, darling? You should have had at least twenty years in this place."

"Twenty—" I choke on the ocean air. "Twenty years?"

"Yeah, limbo has its stretches. But you look like you did in the hospital. Same clothes, even."

Same clothes. My hand dives into my pocket suddenly. To my relief—utter relief—I feel the scrap of paper in my pocket, the piece of paper with Eames' phone number on it. I haven't thought of it since the first hour I was here.

"I can't tell how long I've been here," I tell him, in a rush. I can tell that he's real, now. I know he is. The words flow, unstoppable, because I know I can tell him without fearing that I might be talking to myself, to the air. "The sun—the moon—I haven't even slept yet. That peach tree there—I've only eaten peaches the whole time I was here. I might have had bread some time ago, I'm not sure. I thought you were—I thought you were here with me just now."

"It's possible that a projection of me was here with you," Eames says, nodding. "Tulloc did suspect that you had a mind of your own, a subconscious, if not half-formed."

"Y-You said I should have been here twenty years?"

"About, yes."

"But you look—you look like you did—"

"Oh. I don't think I've explained to you? In the real world, time passes a lot more quickly than it does in this level of deep, unstable, mindless dreaming. In limbo. Five minutes in reality could be ten years down here. I'm not quite sure on the exact numbers though, math wasn't ever my strong subject."

As I listen to him talk, barely understanding what he's saying, I realize that I don't want to leave, that I don't want him to leave.

"Can we stay here?" I ask in a small voice.

"What?" Eames says, then bows his head slightly. "I came here to find you, Claire, and also to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Tulloc's sister—that Agnes lady—the body she made for you is living. It's alive. Something worked."

My breath skips a beat. I choke again. "It's alive?" I manage.

Eames nods. "But it's in some sort of coma, or something. It lives, breathes, needs food and water—but it's not awake. It's not lucid. There's brain activity, but very little, barely enough to count as living. The rest of you is here."

I look around myself. "That must be why everything seems a little faded," I muse out loud. "Not all of me is here."

"Could be," Eames says, nodding.

I look at him. "You look real enough, though. Not like that other Eames. Where did he go?"

"Where are the rest of your projections, for that matter? Unless you really enjoy solitude that much?" Eames says, looking around me.

"There's no one else here," I say.

"No one? So you've been down here alone this whole time?" Eames looks at me, shocked at the prospect.

"It didn't feel like twenty years, I swear," I say, waving my hands about, trying to console him. "Honestly, it felt more like—like a week."

I'm lying. Maybe he knows. The sun and the moon cycled several times, but so slowly that I lost count. The hours didn't seem to coincide with the position of the sun or the moon, either; in short, my sense of time was completely disoriented during my time here.

Eames eyes me, then sighs and looks out across the ocean.

"There was something else," he says. "Jencks is having cold feet about getting you out."

"What? Why?"

"You were a part of his subconscious. You knew things about him that even he didn't consciously know. His corporate enemies might get a hold of you, force his secrets out of you."

"I don't remember anything, I don't know anything about him," I cry. But even as I say this, I feel a wall in my mind crumbling, a wall that I didn't notice before. It cracks, then suddenly collapses to dust, and a myriad of blurry memories floods in. I stand there, frozen, watching Jencks' secrets run across my eyes. His childhood home, his parents, his torment as an ostracized student, the one girl he ever loved who passed through his life like a stranger. Deep secrets, deep workings of his mind, the real reasons behind his choices, his social weaknesses, his corporate genius, his quirks, his joys, his bitter resentments. And numbers, letters. Banks, phones, insurance, passwords, accounts, names, places—I bury my hands into my hair, trying to stop the onslaught of information, disjointed memories.

"So you do remember," Eames says quietly, watching me struggle. I look up at him. He looks blurry.

"I don't want to," I say. My voice is distorted by tears. "I don't want to know any of this. I want to go to the real world, to—" _to be with you_.

To be with Eames?

I stand there, stricken, staring at Eames. It's true. I do want to be with him. Even in my solitude, here in this world, deep in my mind, I call upon him to accompany me. It is only him that I want to be with. No projections appeared before me, because I didn't want them to. I never did.

Eames is waving his hand in my face, looking concerned. "Hello? Claire?"

I regain my senses, stand a little straighter, untangle my hands from my hair. "Please," I say, looking straight at him, as unwavering as I can make myself be. "Please, help me out of here."

Eames looks at me curiously. "You don't want to stay here? In this perfect haven of yours?"

"It's not real," I say, struggling with my tongue. "I want to be in the…real world."

"It's easier here," Eames says, eyeing me.

I nod, still catching my breath. "I know."

"If you go to the real world, Jencks might kill you. Your body might not work. Lots of things could go wrong."

"I know."

Eames looks at me a little longer, then sighs, shaking his head. "I never knew anyone who willingly left their self-constructed heavens."

The memories are subsiding, dimming down to a hum that I can ignore. I suck in a deep, shaky breath, and feel my ribs ache.

"What do I have to do to get to the real world?"

"I think…well, I think I have to kill you."

Kill me? Then my heart settles; I remember. Whenever I was killed, or a dream ended, I was automatically taken out of the dream.

Then a thought hit me. "Couldn't I just stay here, and wait out the dream?"

"Well, you said yourself that you didn't know how much time went by. The time here's gone awry, I think. Not safe to leave you here. Besides, once you die in limbo, you die everywhere else. You don't exist anymore."

"Oh." The hope comes crashing down.

"…But how am I going to end up in that body, instead of back in Mr. Jencks' head?"

Eames held out his hand. "That physical contact, that willpower crap Dr. Tulloc was talking about? It might work with you and me."

I draw back. "But it didn't work with Mr. Jencks."

"Because one of you got cold feet. I'm pretty sure it's Jencks, since he doesn't want you spilling his secrets…but it did work, to some degree. That body is alive, though barely."

"Is Agnes there?"

"Yeah. She's on standby."

"She knows when we're going to the real world?"

"She can tell. Don't ask, I don't know how it works." Eames shakes his head. "That Tulloc family has issues, I'm telling you."

I look at his outstretched hand for awhile, before taking it. He lifts my other hand, holds both tight.

"Are you okay with drowning yourself?" He asks.

"Not on a normal basis."

Eames smiles, steps closer. "Are you ready now?"

I nod.

"Okay." We walk out into the ocean, slowly. No hurry. We begin to wade, to have difficulty trusting the watery sand underneath our feet. Finally, we are at the point where my nose is just above the surface. Eames ducks his head in, pulls me under. I don't resist. In the salty, sand-strewn water, I feel my breath seeping away, but panic doesn't kick in. Eames doesn't release my hands, pulls me closer. As I begin to feel lightheaded, a weight enters my chest, first through my fingers and toes, and then up towards my heart, my head—

I sit up, gasping. But I'm not in the ocean anymore. Beside me, I feel Eames sitting up, saying something groggily.

My body feels strange, just a little off. My elbows are a bit too bony, my legs a bit too long—

The new body.

Holding my breath, I look down at my hands, my arms. I sort of expect to see stitches, large and ungainly, but I see nothing of the sort. My skin is smooth, smooth as can be. I feel my face, which seems more or less the same. No bumps, no ridges, where stitches might be.

A little confused, disoriented, I clamber out of bed. The body feels more like a prison.

Eames looks at me. "Claire?"

I open my mouth, force my teeth and tongue around. "Yes. It's me. I-I think."

Eames nods, closes his eyes. Beside me, Agnes and her brother are celebrating triumphantly. Trent and the rest of the team seem afraid to approach me. Which is fine with me, really. I sit back down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. Keeling over, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: I'm soooo sorry for dragging magic and golem-like confusion into this story, I couldn't figure out much of another way for Claire to have a body in the real world. And the physical closeness—I know, I know. I'm ashamed to think about it. But honestly, truly, I couldn't come up with anything else, not in my rush to post a third chapter while I'm still alive.

Urgh. I'm going to delete this chapter within a week. I'm just posting it to show you guys how frazzled I am right now. Frizzle frazzle.

Pleeease, review; but don't rave about my reliance on magic and physical closeness, because I'm very well aware. Very.

-Sanded Silk-


	4. Chapter 4

Umm. So.

I'm discontinuing this story here, but that doesn't mean it will never be updated; who knows, I may pick it up again somewhere down the line.

Also, in a sense, it's continuing in my new story, "Meshwork Fragile," which is basically this one rewritten, with most errors/lapses in prose corrected. It's from Eames' POV, limited, and is-in my opinion-much more interesting than this one.

Thank you all for reading! If you liked this story enough, please read "Meshwork Fragile" and review!

/cookies for everyone/

-Sanded Silk-


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